The Argonian Maid?...Nope!

 

As they stepped through the ring of fire and the screeching, humming tune got overwhelming loud... and the next moment when they arruved in the plane of fire and molten stone, it had turned into a dull, nagging white noise.



It was hot, breathing the air felt the same as smoking khajiitweed, the opposite shock of stepping under a cold rain of water.

Both argonians had no time to dwell on it as they heard the clang of metal and the swoosh of magic missiles beeing fired.

They ran, the ground dry, hot under their toes but at least not half molten.



A guard fought against a hunger and a clanfear, both easily dispatched by Khzzarr, smashing their skulls in. If the fiery red argonian was good in something, it was killing while Kyrell patched up the badly burnt Imperial with some potions, Khzzarr keeping watch over them.



He really fit well into this plane, red and black, big and...with a taste for grinding his opponents into the ground, or the wall.





When the guard had given them the neccessary information and they had sent the tired man off because he would have only hindered them, they went on.



Both would have prefered it if they could have somehow sneaked around the big gate, but Khzzarr got a bit giddy with the promise of more enemies.

And a giddy, teeth flashing, grinning, red giant was something that made even a nord uneasy.





"You couldn´t maybe..not beat everything into a pulp? I would like to collect pieces of them, not mush"



"I try, but I like to erase any chance for them to make a scratch on me" came the remark, grinning again, putting the maze over his shoulder and looking around for his next object of deadly desire.



Even the plants were unfriendly here and Khzaar..well it was the first time for him that he treated a plant as he treated other foes as one of the things whipped around and sliced through his leather armour.



Kyrell wasn´t completly sure but it seemed the vines shied away from them after the display of pure violence, mashing the stringy tendrils with a neverending supply of anger fuelled power.



If the plants had been able to uproot themselves and ran away, he had the feelings they would have done so.



But at least they didn´t bother them any longer. Clanfear, Hungers, Dremoras...they came at them.



Encountering the creepy decoration, hanging, stringed up, gutted, skinned corpses, bodies burnt to charcoal as they had clearly tried to crawl out of the burning lakes around them, heads on spears, frozen in the moments of agony.



It was bad, but not that bad..what really was bad was the mechanism to mash people...the smell.





And the discovery that Kyrell made, turned his stomach.

The squishy, fleshy pods, either pinkish or red and deadra like in appearance..first he had sliced at them to discover some gems and other things, but than he opened one .,..a pinkish pod and out fell partly digested, skinless, bones shining through muscles,the corpse of a ...well..man or mer, no idea what.



The sight was gruesome and thinking back at the armor, weapons, gold that had been in some, realising that the people somehow had been trapped there, partly digested and turned..



Khzzarr looked a bit queasy, not more than that, but Kyrell emptied his stomach and nearly did it again when they found that in those pods, the pinkish, grew hungers, nourished by the liquidized remains of others and...higher deadras growing..maybe also other fallen deadras remains digested by the dark red and black pods, nourishing freshly forming ones..seeing one of those hungers hatch from such a pod was ugly...really ugly.



"How..can you stand that?" he gasped as Khzzarr kept him upright after the last encounter that had made his scales turn pale and more greenish grey than the vibrant blue-green silver they had been before.

"Experience...and an iron stomach." shrugging as he dragged the other Argonian on.



Those organic looking towers were not the best for a direct combat, but fuelled with potions, Kyrell blasted most opponents away, leaving the poor imperial soldier in this...torture tower, going on to destroy the gate and steal the sygil stone.



"You also have the feeling as if those things are somehow alive?" Khzzarr asked in a distrusting voice, Kyrell just nodding, concentrating on avoiding traps.

It could have been funny as a big spiderwoman was pierced by one of their own traps as she charged at them.



The happily fizzing fountain of blood, oh it was so heavily laced with magic and he...was thirsty..they had health and magika potions but nothing to quench thirst properly.



Was it the heat or the magic of the fountain..Kyrell had a hard time to stop himself from having a gulp or two, fishing an empty flask from his knapsack and filling it with the sparkling blood that seemed everfresh, putting it away for further research and than hastening further with Khzzarr.



They didn´t bother to fight the last two Dremora that rushed at them, both pulling the Sigill stone away, holding on as the world churned, turned, shreeked around them..this tower really was alive, he could have sworn he felt the pulse of a beating heart under his feet as they stood on the tightly stretched skin..and than everything tumbled, broke, washed over them as they fell back onto Nirn.





It rained...washing away the heat of their skin, the ash out of the air and for a while the world was perfect again with rain, coldness and fresh water to drink before they had to go on again.